


The Dawn Is Bright And Full Of Wonder

by SilverShortyyy



Series: The Last Requiem [7]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Battle of Winterfell, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 14:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18813196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShortyyy/pseuds/SilverShortyyy
Summary: Post-Battle of WinterfellNo one really knows how Lady Melisandre died. As much as she is beautiful, only a few would still have it in them to look for a woman who never really personally graced them with her presence.Arya wonders, though, if what they say is true. That she is dead. That the woman who gave Arya her prophecy is really gone.Ser Davos can only wrap his head around Melisandre being dead. Nothing much else has settled, even if he was probably the only one who saw and paid attention.





	The Dawn Is Bright And Full Of Wonder

The news of her death was passed on like one would pass on news of typical weather.

"The Red Woman? Heard she died."

"In battle?"

"Some say she burned in her own flames. Some say she was caught by a wight."

Arya didn't believe the woman could be devoured by her own flames. That wight bit, a little more believable.

Still, Arya went around Winterfell to gather as much as the talk as she could.

"Does it matter how she died? She saved us with the fire for the trench! She died a hero, however she did!"

"Bet she got caught between ours and the wights. Isn't exactly easy to get back on a horse and run when you're frozen by fear."

"I heard some people say they watched her walk away. Who said she was dead?"

Indeed, who did? It seems to Arya none of the talk sounded right, unlike the words the woman had spoken to her, just a few moments before Arya had ended it all.

_"Brown eyes, green eyes..._

_"And blue eyes."_

Arya still can't quite wrap her head around it.

Arya finds herself back in the upper levels of Winterfell, winding through the castle hallways, no destination quite in mind. Her feet lead her on.

She finds herself on the battlements, looking out into the horizon she swore wouldn't appear come daybreak; she hadn't even thought daybreak would come.

Ser Davos is there, and from what she's heard, he's quite personally know the Red Lady longer than most of them.

She walks to stand beside him, looking out, off into the battlefield.

Death and death and the future they fought for.

"So they were right," he says. His accent is thick, shaping his voice more than his voice should shape into it. "Ya aren't the gloating type."

"I ended the Night King." Arya says, and the night plays back again for her. So much death. Somehow, she's not as bothered. "That's celebration enough, isn't it?"

She senses him wondering about her. They all do; all give her this look she doesn't have to see on Ser Davos to know that's the look he's given her.

He's looked at her like that before, while she fought on the battlements, while he stood at the doorway into a tower.

"I guess it is. Not that it's all over." He turns back to the horizon, and it's her turn to look at him.

Whitened hair and whitened beard, eyes like stones no matter how many battles he's gone through. Blackwater, Bastards, and now Winterfell... He seems talented at avoiding Death, even when he is served to Death on a silver platter.

Maybe Death doesn't want him yet. Wants to claim him on another battlefield, or somewhere that is the complete opposite of a battlefield, or at the hands of someone he trusts.

Or in the arms of someone he loves.

"I met the Red Woman years ago. Stannis Baratheon had still been alive." She turns back to the horizon. He turns again to look at her. "She bought Gendry from the Brotherhood Without Banners, who had me and Gendry captured at the time.

"She told me I'd shut eyes forever. Brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes." She turns to him, meets his gaze. "She reminded me of that last night. And I hadn't stumbled into the Godswood and thought to end the Night King myself."

Surprise fills those eyes, and the exhaustion around his eyes gets emphasized. Exhausted, tired of all the battles. Of all the death. And yet alive, still alive; he has seen so much, maybe too much, but there is no other way to live, no better way to live, than this.

She wonders what she looks like, in his eyes.

"Well," he says, and humor mixes in with that surprise, humor he keeps close, and closer. "At least some of her predictions were right."

Arya smiles, just a little, and turns to the dawn with him.

He doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, but she doesn't expect him to, doesn't want him to. She's thankful he could tell that much without her opening her mouth.

The night has gone, its darkness and terrors gone with it.

* * *

Davos can't stop looking back into the horizon.

He may have seen the woman give birth to a shadow baby, and had seen (as others) how the woman lit the whole trench up when Daenerys had been lost in the fog, not to mention witnessed the woman resurrect a damn dead man, but he still can't quite believe the last that he saw.

She had walked, out of Winterfell, through the dead men, shed her cloak, shed her necklace.

Then her red hair had just turned white, and she just fell. And died. Just like that.

One would think after all he's seen, Davos would be more likely to appreciate that the ruby she wore around her neck probably held all the magic together.

He looks back at the horizon, just a glance from a castle window.

He walks on.

He had promised he would kill her the next time he saw her. Promised the next time they meet would be the end of her. No matter what failure she had fallen on and gotten up from, her sins were unforgivable. A girl, an innocent _girl_ was dead because of her, a girl who could have been the next Lady of Storm's End.

A girl who had been so kind, so generous yet so fierce and stubborn and loyal and friendly, who he could have died for if only he had the blood for it.

Shireen, oh Shireen.

But Davos still found himself just staring out as Melisandre walked away, walked away and faded.

Just like that.

Davos admits he might really just have killed Melisandre on sight, if. If. If he had not seen her give up, hopeless eyes, despondent, shoulders drooped and looking into a fire as if looking into it could make the flames engulf her and devour her whole. If he had not heard the plea in her voice, the crush in her bones when Jon Snow had not woken up, had not drawn first breath after how many repetitions of her spell. If he had not watched her pick herself up, gracefully, humbly; lost the manipulative seductress she had once been and instead bowed, only coming when desperately needed, left when she was told to leave.

He doesn't understand it, any of it.

But he finds he might actually be thankful for her pushing little Arya Stark on the path to all of their salvation.

He walks, through the hallways and the holes in the walls, through the crowds, through the people, and says good riddance, but doesn't quite wish death upon the Lady Melisandre, not like he thought he would.

* * *

Her red hair is no longer red. Her voluptuous body no long voluptuous.

She is dead, after so many years.

She is done, gone, and at least she took him with her.

Long live, that girl.

Long live.


End file.
